Justin Hilton's home away from football sits between a bar promoting 25-cent games of pool and a strip club on South Orange Blossom Trail.

It has been that way long before Hilton first ran onto the field as a wide receiver at Harmony High School in St. Cloud and did not change as he went from Butte College in California to Indiana State. Now in his first year with the Orlando Predators, Hilton never strays far from Rieg's Gun Shop & Range, which he and longtime friend Jesse Hastings bought from his grandmother in 2012.

"[The shop] is everything,'' said Hilton, 26. "It's up there with my professional football career. I'm going to play as long as possible, but I can sit in that gun shop until I'm 90 years old in a rocking chair."

Hilton has eight catches for 99 yards and two touchdowns for the Preds (1-1), who will take on the host New Orleans VooDoo (1-1) at 8 Saturday night. The Arena Football League game will be available on espn3.com.

In business since 1968, the shop has been in the same location since 1974. Hilton, Hastings and their team of six employees do it all, helping customers as they buy, sell and trade guns. Rieg's repairs guns and offers firearms classes for beginners and concealed-weapons courses.

Check out photos from the Orlando Predators' 2015 season opener against the Philadelphia Soul at Amway Center. The Soul won 70-63.

Hilton earned a criminology degree from Indiana State and has been on the practice squad for the Cincinnati Bengals and Tennessee Titans.

"The same values I've learned as an athlete is what's given me the good tools to be a good leader and boss," Hilton said. "You play in the NFL, you do certain things, you get certain bonuses and those players play better.

"We'll take them out to Texas de Brazil, the whole shop, and it'll be on me and [Hastings]. It's whatever they want to do, wherever they want to go. We'll make a night of it with a team building activity."

Said Rieg: "They're doing an amazing job. It's everything we hoped and dreamed for. Talk about full circle. It's quite special for the whole family."

As is having Hilton back in the area where he played high-school football. He played for the AFL's Tampa Bay Storm, accounting for 43 catches for 595 yards and 13 touchdowns, in parts of the past two seasons.

Hilton spends most of his time at the gun shop, beginning as early as 6:30 a.m. on most days, his time there interrupted usually only by football practice.

"I don't have to think about all the stresses of being an owner of a gun shop when I'm in a football game, and if I had a bad practice, I don't want to bring that to the shop, because I have to be a leader," Hilton said. "I'm a quarterback there at the gun shop."

His employees appreciate that.

"[Justin] models his life from a team concept, and we work together as a team," said Bob Yates, a pastor at the United Church of the Nazarene and a Rieg's employee. "They're very driven and success oriented, but people are not lessened in their business model.

"They grew up seeing the business evolve, and they just expanded the vision of the business."

Hilton grew up going to Preds games and working in the gun shop. Now he is on the Preds' roster and owns Rieg's.